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You want a badass monitor? Try out the Princeton HX-12, with a brutal 11.5 inch viewable display, a sweet-ass on/off switch (not a button, mind you), and a dial to set the screen’s brightness. We’re talking class here, folks; none of that on-screen configuration jazz. Back in ‘84 when 60hz refresh was Da Bomb ™, and when The Man was slowly suckin’ the freedom from this world, the HX-12 was state-of-the-art.

Unfortunately, my upper-level math skills tell me it’s now 15 years later, which means the HX-12 isn’t the pro’s choice when it comes to playin’ Half-Life, or renderin’ yer 3D porno scenes. Old technology, however, is where the mendax.org staff prevails.

When your man WyldKard came across the HX-12, it was a heavy mofo. Unaware of the HX-12’s screen res, etc, it was a potential second monitor, and for the price of free, no one argued about schlepping the HX-12 home. Unfortunately, we soon found out that this particular HX-12 didn’t work very well. In fact, the screen didn’t do much aside from turn all white, and so with tools in hand, the HX-12 was disassembled.

What to do with an ancient monitor? We knew right away that to use the HX-12, we had to be a little crafty. Fixing the mofo was a waste of time, and so we established a new goal: to build a fishtank out of the HX-12. Not only that, but in order to give you a glimpse into how we did it, we threw some pics online, and with this article, you too might find a piece-of-crap monitor (or Mac) and make a fishtank from it. Heck, if you’re at all cool, you won’t have a normal, commercial fishtank in your home, but one you built outta X-Technology.

After gutting the monitor (and taking care not to cut ourselves on the glassy-interor), we needed to hack off everything, from a foam pad on the back of the case, to useless wires running throughout the darn thing. We did remember to keep the wires attached to the on/off switch and brightness dial, though, since down the road, we intend to wire ‘em up to the air pump and light. Anyway, gutting the beast was one of the simplest parts to the project.

Fortunately, the case of the HX-12 slides apart, kinda like a crappy desktop computer case. Once the screws and whatnot were removed, we had two separate parts to work with: the front/base, and the rear/walls. We decided to build the fishtank walls attached to the front of the HX-12, since it was the easiest to work with.

Before we started constructing the actual walls of the fishtank, however, we decided to cut a rectangular hole into the top of the case, since we’d need to get at the actual tank-part of the unit once it was completed, to throw fishies in, or play around with the pump, filter, etc. For this, and for every other cutting job we did, we used a dremel, probably the greatest tool on earth. Though we could have gotten away making cleaner cuts by using a half-dozen bits, we ended up using only two: a fiber-glass cutter, and a coarse sander. Both of these bits are pretty standard for dremels, and you can find them in any hardware store if they didn’t already come with your dremel. Wait, you don’t have a dremel? Well, get one before you give yourself a headache with an annoying case like the HX-12. Ahead of you are such annoying tasks as removing thick pegs, sanding down a handful of case-parts, and cutting various types of plastic. I’d also recommend getting a guide for your dremel, so you can keep it level on long cuts, making much nicer, smoother cuts. And, you can use a piece of wood or something to guide the dremel along, so you don’t end up with uneven cuts.

Our choice of material for the fishtank walls was plastic replacement glass. We decided against using real glass because it would have added significant weight to the tank, and would have been a bitch to cut properly. Plus, the plastic glass we used was much cheaper than the real thing, flexible, and easily shaped. The only annoyance was the amount of crap that flew off when it was being cut, so we took all our cutting work outside, and used a trash can to catch most of it.

The nice thing about the replacement glass is that it comes with thin cellophane coating both sides, so the surface of the glass didn’t get scratched during the cutting process, or when we threw the stuff in a corner of the room while doing other things with the tank. The replacement glass was also the perfect material for cutting with a dremel, as it didn’t melt much at all with the fiber-glass cutting bit.

The first side we added to the tank was the front face, the actual part we’d be looking through to see our fishies. Originally, we intended on putting the face on the inside of the monitor shell, which is where the actual monitor lens was before we threw it out. The problem with putting the face there however, was that the inside-front of the case had a bunch of curved edges, which would have made the caulk-job much more difficult.

To rectify this situation, we placed the face on the outside of the case, where there just happened to be a comfortable groove for the face to fit into. Though we originally kept the glass in place with caulk, we later took a glue gun to the outside, as well as parts of the inside, to add to the glass’s support, and fix some leaking problems.

The most difficult part, perhaps, was getting the measurements right. The case was designed in such a way so that it wasn’t a perfect rectangle, getting slightly thinner the further back it went. This meant that the fishtank walls would be taller in the front than in the back. Instead of bothering to deal with crazy measurements and architectural drawings, we cut some corners and dealt with some of the more obvious problems later.

Regardless, the second wall we added was the floor, which we caulked into place beneath the front window. We didn’t place it up against the actual window cutting, or against the actual floor, though, but rather placed it atop two pegs. This simply happened to be more convenient, especially in regards to caulking, since there wasn’t really any straight edge to prop the glass against.

After we had the front and bottom in place, it was pretty simple cutting the back and side walls. Note the caulking in the picture above; this was our initial attempt which served mainly to keep things held together. We ended up going over everything again later on with a second caulk-layer, to actually prevent the tank from leaking.

Above, you can see the tank walls in place, and can get some idea of how everything would later come together. After this picture was taken, we spent about a week caulking and waiting for everything to dry before we decided to go ahead and add water to the tank. You can see in the picture below that we had problems closing the case, which continued to be a problem unless we closed it front-down.

Also note the white tabs sticking out into the hole we cut on the top of the case. Though we didn’t plan for them to be there, they ended up coming in really useful, to actually lock the grate we cut off earlier into place. Later, we just glued two more tabs into place on the other side of the hole, and we were able to put the grate back on the case when we didn’t need to fish around the tank.

We tested the tank for leaks at least a half-dozen times, adding water, waiting for it to drip out somewhere, and then having to dump the water out and patch up the holes. Because of the amount of caulk we used earlier in the project, we were able to patch up the minor holes with a glue gun. Interestingly enough, the most annoying leak (being next to impossible to target), was at the front of the tank, where a copious amount of molten plastic needed to be used.

Unfortunately, we kept finding more leaks, albeit small ones. In addition, once we started to add the fish tank equipment, the filter and air pump were moving water around enough to add some confusion to the leak-checking. Eventually, though, we hammered out our problems and had a decent tank to throw fishies in.

The thermometer we added ended up being a nice touch, as it glued onto the front “display.” Since the fishtank wasn’t getting light from all directions, we decided to get brightly-colored gravel, and though originally opposed, I gave in to the suggestion of hot pink. In the end, I think the choice was pretty damn good.

Equipment-wise, we didn’t have many problems. The heater we bought fit fine, as did the air pump, the actual pump part of which sat outside the tank behind the on/off switch. The only thing that didn’t fit right was the filter. Fortunately, it had a pretty large lip to it, which we sanded down about a quarter inch so that the filter could slide down towards the back of the case. The electric cables for all three components were easily run out behind the tank, through where the actual power cord used to fit.

All in all, the project went pretty well. The most aggravting part of the project was getting rid of the leaks, though this could have bee simplified had we done a better caulking job from the beginning, using tools to smooth out the caulk instead of letting it lump up. As noted earlier, cleaner cuts would have been possible with a wood guide of some sort, though the end product was spiffy-looking regardless.

If you do intend on converting an old monitor into a fishtank, remember to wear safety goggles. I almost killed someone when a cutting disk broke and flew across the room. Molten plastic, by the way, hurts like a mofo when it hits your naken skin in large clumps. Also, don’t be a fool; get a guide for your dremel, else you might slip on the replacement glass cutting and find yourself with a detached finger. As if I had to say it, just use common sense.

Cases that can be taken apart, like the Princeton HX-12 are much easier to work with than a case completely enclosed by five sides. This is especially true if you want to rewire things after putting the tank together, like what we intend to do with the on/off switch and brightness dial. Feeding cables and tubing through the case is much easier when you cna pull the case apart, but make sure it comes apart smoothly, else you might have to empty the case before you take it apart each time. That’s one of the problems we ran into with the HX-12.

As a sidenote, don’t worry about the caulk killing your fishes. Though caulk is considered toxic, our fish survived the ordeal quite well. In fact, the first day we added fish, five out of eight survived, which (according to the jacko at PetsMart) is pretty standard. If you’re at all concerned, though, do like we did and get cheapo fish for the first week, and if any live, then go and buy more expensive fish.

Project length: ~14 days (drying time was pretty significant).
Cost: ~80 bux, which includes all the tank supplies and building materials (tools not included). If you don’t have a dremel, a decent set goes for about $50-$75, and a good guide about $20.
Size: ~4 gallons.

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